The Dishes Still Aren't Done

I've been riding a hot air balloon the past few weeks. Thanks to my publicist, Rebecca Grose, my schedule is packed with events promoting my new books. This is the season for DAD AND POP and YOUR DADDY WAS JUST LIKE YOU, but DANCE Y'ALL DANCE has had it's share of attention, too. TV and Radio Interviews--including one where I came on right after this song, and a report about a box of human heads found on a plane--books signings, readings, storytimes. I've visited Bank Street Books and Books of Wonder. Both well-respected book stores have long been touchstones for me. I'd slide in like a thief, trying not to look suspicious as scoured the shelves looking for my books, only to slink back out with my tail tucked--no such luck. Well not anymore! I've read my books in those stores (never mind that only a few fistfuls of people listened), I've met the owners and they love my books and seem to like me and asked me to sign all the copies so they could feature them in their "autographed books" section. And...if that's not enough: I made it past the stone lions guarding the entrance to the New York Public Library and down into the hallowed "Children's Center". And best, after my presentation, the John Peters, the department head, took Lexi, my daughter and I on a tour, of this marvel. And, while we didnt' get to "touch" they collection of Christopher Robin's stuffed animans in "Poo Corner" we did get to press our noses against the glass and gaze upon them for as long as we wanted. All this was warm up for yesterday. The news arrived a few days ago, YOUR DADDY WAS JUST LIKE YOU was going to be in USA Today. Then, Monday, the news got even richer, DAD AND POP was also going to be featured. Yesterday dawned bright and hot in Houston. I rose early and jumped on the whirlwind of events scheduled. IAfter the "human head" 5 minutes of Radio Fame, in between rushing to the Blue Willow Bookshop, reading and singing with about 50 preschoolers, a stop at CostCo to buy 2 carts of party food for Amy, Lexi's BFF's Engagement Party, A run through Specks for Party Drinks, and dash over to Katy Budget Books for an afternoon signing and reading and lovely chat with my friend Stacy Morris, the event organizer there, I remembered it was Thursday (it was on my schedule...) and the USA Today issue was in my mind. But there were veggies and meats to buy, party lanterns to hang, table clothes to iron--and my friend Joy, who had loaned me her house to hold the event--was busting her rear right along side me to get everything ready, so neither of us really had time to sit down and read a newspaper, let along go out a by one.

Then Max called from Wyoming. He'd taken time to get USA Today, and open it and read the entire HALF PAGE devoted to Father's Day Picture Books--50% of which were mine. Then, out friend Marty called, she was making a late night store run to scoop up all the copies she could find. When Marty arrived, Joy and I retired our dustmops, wash clothes and cutting boards long enough to POP! open a bottle of bubbles, flip open the USA Today and give the marvelous, brillintly written and designed Father's Day Book Roundup it's fare due! As thrilling as it is to see my books, my babies featured in USA Today, we couldn't linger long. The food still isn't ready, the backyard is a mess, we need more ice, the garbage needs to go out, and the dishes aren't done....

And frankly, I don't give a hoot! Yeah USA Today! Go Dad! Go Pop! Go Daddy Go!

Channeling Elmore Leonard

I'm supposed to be writing an article on our recent orangutan viewing visit to Kalimantan and doing everything but... I have a tendency to, as Curtis puts it, write the article in an hour and then spend the next 2 days cutting the word count by 2/3rds or more cutting words. But I'm on a deadline and I would really, really like to change my long writing that habit. But no way can I do it alone, so I'm channeling Elmore Leonard. His advice to struggling writers:

"Try to leave out all the parts that readers skip."

Growing Up Is Hard to Do

“They say that growing up is haaard to do/now I know/ I know that it’s true…”—what Neil Sedaka almost wrote. A few days after my first child, Max, was born, my mother came to visit. Looking down on her grandson’s bald, red cone-head mom said this to me. “Now I can stop worrying about you. You’re a grown up.” To be honest, her comment baffled and insulted me, which is why it probably stuck with me all these 28 plus years. To my mind, I had already been a “grown-up” for years—since I was at least 16—quite capable of taking care of myself thank you very much.

Now that my babies are 28 and 26, I know what my mother meant. My grandmother had a saying to explain how mother love changes through the years: “When they are little they step on your toes, but when they are big, they trample your heart.” No matter how grown up our children may look, in a mother’s mind they are her babies to worry over and protect. But for how long? We mothers can tell ourselves to let go and let them do and be. We can tell ourselves they are their lives to live, their decisions to make and live with, but saying it and doing it are two different beasts.

I just received the following e-mail from my son. The subject line read: “Doris blew her Radiator.” Doris is Max’s name for our Toyota mini-van which he has decked out for camping and decorated with bumper stickers, thus laying claim to it (actually, while the title  and insurance may be ours, I guess that “our Toyota” should read “his” Toyota).

“i was about 70 miles east of encampment, climbing up the pass, and the radiator went.  I had it towed in to the cabin, because it is memorial day, and I'll have it towed to the Laramie toyota dealership for them to diagnose tomorrow.  I have only used 1 of my 4 AAA uses so far, and it reloads in august.  Tell me what you'd like me to do.

Love, Max”

It’s happened. Sometime between Max’s last emergency/disaster/situation and this e-mail, I did it! I let go! Upon reading the note I felt sorrow. I felt my bank account shiver as the dollars it would take to repair Doris flew out (shouldn’t “his Toyota” translate “his bill”? But my gut didn’t wrench, my heart didn’t heart, mother’s guilt didn’t ooze from every pore— “oh, I should be there, he needs me, what if something bad happens, I better call him, make it better, fix everything or better, badger him until he fixes everything exactly the way I want it” the way it always had before.

It feels good. Really good. I’m finally—at least, today—the kind of mother I wanted to be when I grew up. (Growing up, as it turns out, is elusive.) I’m feeling puffed up proud, and confidant that Max, is grown up enough to take care of this situation, and I’m grown up enough to sit back and let him.

Just Who Do We Think We Are?

Anyone living in the USA whose ancestors weren’t immigrants raise your hands? Only Native American’s, First Nations People, should have a hand up…and then only pure bloods. My American heritage dates back about 150 years, post Civil War, post slavery. (I like that part—it’s nice not taking blame). My father’s family came from Sweden and England, and were part of the Western Expansion. (Indian Relocation? Guilty). My mother is of Portuguese ancestry (with a little Scot-English we like to pretend never happened). Our Portuguese ancestors came here from the Azores in ships much like Columbus’s Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria, small, crude, wooden. The ships sailed around the Horn—Cape Horn, the tip of South America, a journey called “a great challenge” by sailing aficionados—stopped in Hawaii and finally arrived in San Francisco Harbor. Immigrants who traveled this route were called “Green Horns.”

My grandfather’s mother, her husband and children left the Azores in the late 1800s. Long months later, my grandfather’s mother was the only one in her family to step ashore. Her husband and children died during the crossing. A “green horn,” alone, poor and grieving, she took the best job she could get, doing laundry. She remarried and had one son, my grandfather, Joseph Thomas Silva, born in America.

When I was 8 or so my grandparents were visiting and my step-father, having recently joined the Elks Club, proudly took us to his Club . As Elks do, the men got to comparing how long they had been members. My grandfather, also an Elk, pulled out his card. The man he was talking with whistled. “Wow! You’ve been a member a long time,” he marveled.

My grandfather looked at him. “I would have been a member longer, but back in my day, you wouldn’t let my kind join.”

My grandfather’s story is far from unique. If you’re descended from recent immigrants, you may know first hand how hard life is for anyone coming to America who does not speak American English with a USDA approved accent—aka one traceable to a southern, northern, Midwestern or eastern state—or  broadcaster bland. Others, like me, look back through American history, through your own family history. You’ll uncover layer upon layer of injustices and difficulties new immigrants endured before finally being accepted as Americans. Sure, we love, love, love having “them” --African “them” to plow our fields,  Chinese “them” to build railroads, Italian “them” to build our cities, Mexican “them” to harvest, clean, sweep, paint, garden, do all the “dirty jobs” we don’t want to do. But who do they think they are wanting citizenship? That may have been our ancestors’ right, but its not theirs…

What about that statue in New York Harbor, Lady Liberty, officially “Liberty Enlightening the World”? Should we sandblast the words off the base of her statue: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses?” Or paste a new sign over it: Only the wealth, white, and those under “work/study contracts" from Eastern Europe need apply, the rest of you immigrants—especially those of you already living and working and paying taxes here—shut up, do your job then get out. History be damned, the good old US of A is Full Up so Get Lost…

The Longer, Winding Road

With regards to making my way around, after five years living in Jakarta, I thought I had it figured out. Feeling quite capable and confidant about riding in a taxi--many of our friends take taxi’s everywhere—I had Sugiman, our Friday driver, drop me at the SOS Medical Clinic, and continue on his way to the airport to meet our friend, Justus’s flight. Justus and his sister Trinity are visiting us for a few weeks. While they are here, we are flying to Kalimantan where we’ve organized a weekend-long boat trip to view the orangutan in the wild. Although malaria is not much of a risk, the trip organizers suggest participants take malaria prevention medication. As expected, I zipped into the clinic, and a half-hour later zipped back out, Malarone in hand, and asked the car-call attendant to hail a taxi.

Blue Bird is the preferred Taxi company in Jakarta, because the drivers are supposed to be trained and know their way around. Borrowing on Rick’s line from Casablanca, of all the drivers in all the taxis in all of Jakarta, I had to get the one driver who didn’t have a clue where I wanted to go.

In basic, gramatically incorrect but servicable Indonesian, I rattled off my street, nearby main roads, the neighborhood, even Pasar Mingu, a large traditional market near my home (which every Jakartan knows well. It's like saying at the base of the Eiffel Tour in Paris). He shook his head at every possibility. Was he saying no, that he didn't understand me? Or no, that he didn't know those places?

“Ask the guard,” I suggested, pointing out the window to the main opening the clinic gate.

The driver looked back at me, “Where is this place?” He asked. He didn’t know where he had picked me up?

“SOS Medical Clinic” I said. I felt my eyebrows rise and tried to keep the duh…out of my voice.

He nodded, and then asked the guard something, but whatever answer he got, it was not satisfactory.

“Tidak apa apa,” I said, “no problem, I’ll call my house. My maid can tell you where I live.” So I pulled out my handphone, called Rusnati, and asked her to  give him directions.

The driver pulled the taxi to the side of the road, took the phone and listened for a second before turning back to me.

“What road is this?” he asked.

Needless to say, it was a longer, winding road home...

What Kind of Excuse is “Too Busy”? or If Only Thoughts Transmitted…

I am disappointed. After committing to posting a blog entry every week, and faithfully keeping that commitment for more than a year, I dropped the ball. Not just once and not with a good reason—“good” meaning the Internet crashed or I did.  What’s my excuse: I’ve been too busy… How busy have I been? I’ve been so busy Kelly’s Fishbowl was booted from my list of “most visited” internet sites. That’s disgusting. How can I expect anyone else to remain faithful to my blog if I can’t even do it myself?

Those unblogged postings belong on a list along with letters I never wrote, calls I didn’t make, stories I never finished, revisions I didn't make, friends I didn’t keep up with.... It’s not that I haven’t thought about doing these things. Oh the things I have thunk! If only the head letters I’ve written and head chats I’ve held could be transmitted… Unfortunately (or fortunately) these mind writings and chats usually take place while I’m driving or waiting somewhere away from my computer, however never far from a pen and paper, as I always keep those in my purse. But, I get carsick if I write in a car, the economy section on a plane is so tight that I’ll gut-elbow the passenger next to me if I try to write on the plane or pull out my computer. Yes, I could have opted for the smaller size laptop. Yes, I have tried talking into a tape recorder while driving. No clue how those road stories and letters turned out as I have never transcribed them—I can’t stand listening to my own voice. The excuses go on….

You know the adage “if you want something done, ask a busy person to do it?” I’m one of those busy people. Aren’t we all? Busy as I am, I seem to be getting done only “what’s expected” i.e.: the things others (except my husband) ask me to do, and things others  tell me are important. Isn’t that how it is with so many things? We stay really busy doing what we should, so busy in fact that we are often too busy to do what we want. Never mind what we promise ourselves (or our husbands) we will do.

Take writing, for instance. During the two years I worked toward a Masters Degree in Writing for Children and Young Adults at Vermont College of Fine Arts, I committed to 25 hours a week of work on the program. During those hours, and more,  I read copious books and maintained a summarized biography, wrote at least 20 pages of new work and 20 pages of revised work, along with an essay (or the equivalent) every month. Many things got in the way of my completing my monthly packets, but somehow, someway, I found the time to do the work. Illness, travel, family issues, surgery, moving…baaahhhhhh, I was never too busy. Upon graduation, I said to myself: “Self, you’re used to this schedule. You like it. You’re happy when you are writing, reading, creating…so stick with it.” But did I?

These missing blog entries are a prime example. I love writing the blog. When events in my Jakarta life stir me, I can’t wait to blog it. Blogging allows me to consider issues and vent.

(Boy howdy, if you could have read the blog I thought while watching the anti, anti-immigration law protest in New York last week…)

But you can’t, because I only thought it. To paraphrase my friend Beverly: “spit in one hand, think in another, rub them together and what have you got?”

Until they do connect thought transmitters directly to my brain, as depicted by M.T. Anderson in his book Feed, I need to get really busy pleasing me.  So, I’m renewing my vow:  I here by commit to unbusying myself enough to do more than only think it; I’m going to write it.

Tra-La, It's Here, That Lusty Time of Year!

"It's May, It's May....the lusty month of May/The time of month when everyone goes blissfully astray....It's time to do a wreched thing or two/And try to make each precious day one you'll always rue..."--from CAMELOT,  Music by Frederick Lowe, Lyics by Alan Jay Lerner.

This is a gloroous weekend!  Isn't it grand when spring blooms!!! NYC is fabulous! I'm visiting my daughter, Lexi. We spent the day day walking around, shopping, looking at people in all manner of costume, eating...such fun! We even stumbled upon a bunch of merry makers hoisting a ribbon and flower festooned May Pole. Loved it!. You can smell life in the air! Love blooming! Everyone and everything growing, streching up to the sun...love that! We are having an al fresco dinner in her tiny Soho apartment with the windows open and the music playing. The neighbors downstairs have pointed their computer/tv to the wall and are projecting car races on the side of the building. I am heading outside to sit on the fire escape, drink a glass of wine and enjoy! It's May, It's May...a Lively Lush Display!

Come on... Fluff Up! Spruce Up! Perk Up! It's spring....time of rebirth, regrouping, revitalizing... The time of "Yes You May!" Make it your YES YOU MAY!!!

I am saying Yes!....yes, Yes, YES!!!

So Much for Being a Rock Star...

I’m currently on a month-long “tour” of the states which began on April 7-8th with the Corpus Christi Book Festival. What an amazing event! The festival, which celebrated its 10 anniversary this year, is the combined efforts of public librarians, 2 colleges, and community sponsors,  and results in more than 2000 Pre-K students meeting authors and illustrators, sharing stories and activities, celebrating reading and books! One of the delights of being a children’s book author is watching a reader's face alight  when he/she recognizes my book. “You wrote the goldfish book?” They say, as though I had created one of the eight wonders of the world. And, at the end of a school visit, if I get hugs, waves and high fives from students, my day is made.

After visits to the CC Book Festival, Texas Library Association in San Antonio, and Field Store Elementary in Waller, having been hugged and high-fived a lot, I was feeling like a total children’s book “Rock Star" as I cranked up the car stereo and zoomed down to Victoria, Texas for a visit to Chandler Elementary. Lady Bird would have delighted in the roadsides festooned with gay wildflowers. The skies were bright, the roads were clear, and the music fine.

I hit the Victoria town limits sometime after 7:00 pm. Puffed up proud of myself for having arrived—without having to double back--but not quite sure where I was headed (since I had forgotten to Google Map the school) I followed signs to downtown. There are several large, wide columned, colonial style homes, what looks like  army barracks near the town center, and an amazing castle-like stone, garroted courthouse/jail compound, and a town square, complete with gazebo a glitter with twinkle lights—which affirmed the feeling that I had arrived somewhere special. This was not your typical small Texas town; this was a town with history and mystery.  A Thursday night concert was underway in the town square—icing on my happy cake.  I pulled my car into a vacant spot  and cut the engine.

When I opened the door, the night air engulfed me like a velour robe. Food and drink tents lined one side of the square. White clothed, round tables with twinkling lanterns, resembled a wedding reception, were clustered under one of the tents—a fundraiser dinner for the symphony (who knew Victoria even had a symphony!). Relishing the night, the small town feel, the spring in my step, after hours of tense driving, the folksy/country music blaring from giant speakers, I stepped out into the night.

Locals watched as I walked, wondering who I was, and what I wanted. One waved, another snapped my photo. I feigned pseudo-mystery woman.

The band, comprised of a one-time rocker, folksy style female singer, pixyish keyboard player with a dark bob held back a sunglass headband, computer programmer-like drummer and geek bass guitarist, was...enthusiastic. While the band performed original compositions, each prefaced by a chatty introduction, I circled the square several times, watching couples and families enjoying the evening, then ducked under bands of yellow “caution” tape guarding the entrance to the Subway. An eager-to-close teenager smiled when I asked the way to Chandler Elementary. She consultedwith her co-worker, then gave clear instructions accompanied by descriptive hand-motions. “Go that way, turn that way---you’ll go through lots of light…and through the tunnel…when you get to the HEB Supercenter, you have to turn… if you hit the highway, you missed it.”

Hers were my kind of directions. Not only did I not “miss it,” I knew I had arrived when I spotted the Chandler Elementary Marquee glowing: “Welcome, Children’s Book Author, Kelly Bennett.” I slowed and rolled past,enjoying the sight. They were ready for me! Tomorrow was going to be a great day!

Feeling so like a rock star rolling into town the night before a big gig, I cruised into the parking lot of the Holiday Inn Express. After checking in, I wheeled the luggage cart out to my car—parked in the reservations only area, because the hotel clerk said I could—and began unloading my car. I hosted my 2 giant duffles, computer bag, bag of books, bag of snacks and sweater onto the cart then turned to check what I had missed. Behind me, I heard a car drive up. Then, a cart rolling down the road…”just another guest unloading, I figured, big deal.

The cart noise speeded up. “Fun! They’re running,” I thought.

However, rather than rolling toward the door, the cart  seemed to be rolling away. “What????” I turned to see why.

It wasn’t another guest’s cart….It was mine! My cart was rolling down the drive…down the street…down toward the intersection—my cart, with my duffles, my sweater, my purse, my computer bag flapping in the breeze as it zoomed!

Clutching the grocery sack of take-away veggies, water, eye drops, my trash bag, phone, trash—an armload of who knows?—I full out, raced toward the cart. I had one chance to catch it.

As I ran, I had the feeling that this could not, no way, end well…either I was going to miss the cart, or I was going to lose my armload. But what else could I do? That cart was making off with my stuff….the sight of my cart colliding with an oncoming car flashed through my mind as I ran….

I reached out my arm, closed my eyes, and made a lucky grab for it….

It happens every time: No sooner does that fantastically great, fabulous head-swelling “Wow! You wrote the goldfish book!” Rock-star feeling hit than something—like a runaway luggage cart—deflates me.

…Gone…gone…gone…whoo-ohh-ohhh-oh...